GEL...what I'm trying to say is, throughout all this, he pushes me to start fights with him. Then he can say what a big meanie I am. If I confront him with this at the wrong time, I'll get the same result. The same thing with the DWI. It's a good thing I had a *long* wait from when he called me to pick him up, to when I actually saw him. I knew that the wrong way to handle this was to scream at him "what an idiot you are, look what you've done now!"

I would have had a hard time not doing that at first. Finally, about half an hour before they finally released him (5 hours later), I decided to just be concerned for his well being..."are you OK, did you get in an accident too, where's your car?". Threw him for a loop, and in a way, it wasn't really *acting*. And maybe it made him think of the possible results of his actions in a way that screaming "You could have killed yourself or someone else!" wouldn't have. I just knew he didn't need me preaching at him, he knew he screwed up, bigtime.


We talked quite a bit that day, and just about everything I said to him, he tried to turn it around into bitching him out, but I just wouldn't let him. One thing to remember is that *I KNEW* he was with girls from the strip club that night too, just at a "regular club". So I was pretty angry. By the end of all of it, he felt bad for putting me through it. I figure I'll let the legal system punish him.

It all sounds manipulative but it's not, so much, it's just finding a way to not let him manipulate me.

And the same thing about the CC debt. I would guess that close to 20K of it was spent at the club. He is waiting for me to confront him on it...I haven't decided what the best way to do it is, yet, so I'm holding off. The bills aren't going anywhere.

Whether he ever admits it to me, he's beating himself up inside over this. I guess my ideal would be that at some point he opens up to me about his worries. That may never happen. At some point we will discuss it, but I won't start the discussion till it's the ideal time for me.

Does that explain it? I think a lot of this comes from the DivorceBusting books, in a way.


Slowly all the roles we act out become our Identity, And in the end we are what we pretend to be. -Jerry Cantrell